Saturday, May 31, 2008

Ah, back in the land of the awake. I stayed up until 8 pm., went to bed (after having been awake for 32 hours!), slept till 8 am. (i.e. 12 hrs!), and woke up with a splitting headache. Anyway, am better now which is a good thing since my letterbox was full of stuff from downtown Athens (hey Lefteris) and thus, right now, you get a quick rundown of the mighty entertaining CRUEL JAWS!

As you all know the skillful and masterful Bruno Mattei made RATS which has just been released on DVD from AWE. Well, Bruno didn't stop there with killer animal films! With CRUEL JAWS (aka Jaws 5) he not only ripped off JAWS but also every other JAWS rip-off he could find, haha. Long story short; killer shark is eating unfortunate teenagers. Good guy with wheelchair-bound kid goes against it while the town's bad guy tries to run him out of town. Gore, mayhem, and incredibly bad acting follow. In other words; great fun and very entertaining!As I said, Bruno ripped off every JAWS rip-off in the book and I mean it literally; in CRUEL JAWS you'll find stolen footage from THE LAST SHARK (aka The Last Jaws), JAWS, JAWS 2, and Joe D'Amato's DEEP BLOOD.Up next at Scala J: ROBOWAR (Mattei's PREDATOR rip-off!! LOL).

Friday, May 30, 2008

Sometimes (often) I find it impossible to go to bed. Don't ask me why. I really don't know. I'm sure I'll lose something. Hours. Life. Lose out on doing stuff. So I stay up. Alert. Awake. Do stuff (or maybe not). Like last night, all night. I trawled thru the entire Internet. Yes, all of it! To find stuff. It's ridiculous! (or not, you find some cool stuff that way!). So now it's ten in the mroning. Morning. And as usual I'm in a dilemma: Go to bed or stay awake??? If I hit the sack I'll sleep thru the day and wake up at 8 o'clock tonight in which case I'll have to stay up all night again cos I can't go to sleep after four or five hours. And if I stay awake I'll zombify in a couple hours. Haha. Try hours ago, mate. I look in the mirror and sense a kinship to the rotting gent you see when the title card comes onscreen in Day of the Dead. You know which one I mean. And staying awake till tonight is also mighty dangerous. Staying awake after you get so tired that you start feeling wide awake again is alright - but when you (I) cross into that inevitable, surreal world (the great blurry beyond) on the other side of wide awakeness that's a sure no-misfire detour into that dead-end road we call a three day migraine. So what to do what to do. I believe Marisa Tomei said it best: "Oh my God, what a fucking nightmare!" [My Cousin Vinny]. To be continued tomorrow. If I'm awake.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

[I might as well reprint these two reviews here on my own blog!]aka Super Platoon / Dschungel Ratten part 2: Black Warrior.

Filipino war flick set during the Vietnam war. A group of soldiers is signed to rescue two US soldiers and a couple of civilians who are kept captive by the Vietcong. The first half of the film is getting there and, obviously, the second half is getting away again. In between we're treated to a very violent and entertaining war flick - Filipino exploitation style.

This is out on Japanese vhs under (I believe) the title Super Platoon. However, it was recently released fully uncut by X-rated in Germany which is a very welcome release as it doesn't exist uncut on dvd anywhere else. The picture is fullscreen but the cassette states this is the original format (I have no idea if this is true) and it's all beautifully dubbed in the Queens German

However, despair not, there's English subtitles!! And, once again, I have no idea as to why! Why didn't they just put the English dubbed audio track on the dvd. Apparently more audio tracks cost more money and I guess X-rated wanted to cut costs but at the same time wanted to secure at least some sale outside of the German speaking countries and thus subtitled it. The subs contain a few grammar mistakes here and there but are fairly alright.

I got my copy from D&T in Austria and although it cost me an arm and a leg (D&T is not exactly a cheap place to shop) I'm happy about my new purchase. BLACK WARRIOR is both pretty violent and pretty entertaining (and then some more violent). The ending leaves room for a sequel if I ever saw one! Btw, in Germany it was released as a sequel to another Filipino war flick called JUNGLE RATS which was released as Dschungel Ratten hence: Dschungel Ratten part 2: Black Warrior. Don't let the dubbing put you off, as I said, very entertaining!

KIZIL MASKE is a pretty fun Turkish superhero flick from 1968. The English title is apparently Red Mask but I have no idea if this played under that title outside of Turkey. Since it's both an un-official version of Lee Falk's comic book hero "The Phantom" and has quite a bit of stolen score music in it (it starts off with tunes from James Bond for crying out loud) I guess it didn't play in the west.

I'm not gonna try and explain the story line as there's way too many talky scenes for me to capisce what it's all about (since I don't speak Turkish). But there are super-guys and crooks aplenty! According to IMDB one of them is called "Fu Mançu" (which I kinda missed due to the aforementioned lack of Turkish lingo skills) but it's all kinda fun. The first part drags on a bit, way too talkative, but the second half is fun. One scene that is interesting though is a scene that shows an indoor gathering of some Kuk-klux-klan wannabes (I'm not kidding) set somewhere in Europe, in a country that has flags that look Danish (the film is in black & white so the colors could be different) and you see a city square that could easily be from Copenhagen.

One interesting bit is that although "The Phantom" is supposed to be a good guy he doesn't refrain from being crude to other people; for instance when two crooks are tied up he slaps them in the face (and his sidekick right out smashes one of them in the face), and in one scene a bad guy is trying to escape along with his girlfriend but Kizil Maske just shoot her in the back (thus killing her)!! There's also some amazing stunt scenes that the actors perform themselves (no stunt guys here); in one scene Kizil Maske and his sidekick jump down from a bridge onto a rolling train!! Try asking any Hollywood actor to do that!!

All in all a pretty entertaining and fun superhero movie. The print I watched was a beautiful restored print with good clear subtitles in ten different languages. There are interviews with the director and the star cast members and... who am I kidding!! The print is scratched beyond belief!! There is not ONE frame that isn't scratched beyond belief! There are no subtitles, and many scenes are way too dark (I believe this has to do with a lack of good equipment when they shot the film and not so much the transfer or the DVD).

KIZIL MASKE is out on a VCD from Turkey but amazingly enough this VCD is missing the entire ending!!! About 5 minutes. My bet is that the Turkish video label were too cheap-ass cheap to include TWO video-cd discs and so they squeezed the film down on ONE disc by chopping off the last 5 minutes!! Simply to save money - and simply too fucking retarded!

When the film ends in the VCD version a kidnapped girl hasn't been saved, and Kizil Maske and his friend who are on top of a train are left up there! Hahaha. It's one thing to save on costs but this is so ridiculous it's right out of Bizarro World.

The version I got hold of is a bootleg DVD from Shocking Videos and fortunately it is the complete restored print. You can clearly see the print is taken from the same cut VCD print and has the last 5 minutes spliced onto it an old video release. The uncut print ends with the word "SON" ("The End" in Turkish).

Apparently there were three KIZIL MASKE films; curiously enough one of them is from the same year ('68) and is also called KIZIL MASKE (and also aka Red Mask). It was directed by Tolgay Ziyal and the last one, KIZIL MASKE'NIN INTIKAMI, came out in 1971.

Cool to see y'all! I must admit I'm most bepuzzled by whoever is located in country #38: 'not set'. What are we talking here? A country that isn't approved by Blogger? Or some very, very secret Dr. Fu Manchu-ian island somewhere flying under the radar? Very strange. Anyway, do stick around.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

I've got nothing to tell you tonight. No-thaang! I just thought I'd let you know I'm still out here, sitting in a dank corner of Cyberspace waiting to strike (LOL). Anyway, that's it.

- Oh, by the way; I received RAMBO 4 yesterday (on Thai DVD) and slugged it in immediately! Wahauw!! Love it!! Am gonna watch it again tonight or tomorrow. Googled the title and obviously some Dane on some blog had to complain about it not portraying the situation in Burma truthfully (!!!). Fede spasser! It's a splatter film for fuck's sake. You retard, haha.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

I'm somewhere in the countryside and obviously I forgot to bring the electrical cord for my computer so I've got about 7 minutes left on the battery. Bummer! Anyway, it's enough time to let you know such important things as I lost out on five eBay auctions last night!! And that (fuck my computer has started countdown now!!) tonight's film is DEATH WISH 2!!! Yes, the most violent and nasty of the lot. One day I ought to track down the Greek vhs which is the only uncut version in the world.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

It's always sad when someone has to sell off their treasured collection due to unforeseen circumstances. I remember how Damon Foster (editor of the legendary Oriental Cinema fanzine) had to sell off his rare films. And now Chris of Cinehound (anybody who has ever tried to win an auction for a rare vhs on eBay has been up against "Mia Mauz" at some point or another. Been up against and lost I might add, LOL). Too fucken bad.

Friday, May 23, 2008

Mein gott!! When will I discover the existence of the Internet!!! I do this bloody blog (rimes too), I have a handful of web-pages (altho dead ones) and I'm online almost every day... and yet I keep forgetting that Cyberspace is even there!!! As I explained in an earlier post my cd player is broke (yes bad American grammar) so I'm going thru my old cassette tapes. Tonight's tape was an old Martin Hall (alternative Danish musician from the '80s) interview from 1984 and he's talking about his (then) new record he'd just put out with his band Under For: "Apparently All The Same", a record I've wanted since 19-fucking-84! In fact I spent the 80s wanting his records but never being able to find any of them since in those days alternative music meant you couldn't buy the records if you lived 3Ks outside of the city centre (I'm not even fucking kidding!!). And then... after having had an Internet subscription for a year and a half... my brain goes (kinda like Homer Simpson); Hey, I've got this fantastic idea... why don't we... okay-okay it's a bad Eddie Hitler impersonation - but Jesus Christ!!! It finally dawns on me I can probably get these records on eBay; I look them up and sure enough there they are!! In just one scoop I get THREE of them! Gott im himmel!!! I think I'll write down one hundred times "gotta realise eBay is there" and go to bed without any dinner to punish myself for being such a retard!Hey, how you doin' by the way?

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Monday, May 19, 2008

Today I bought two bags of chips (and made my dad pay for 'em), listened to a Sonic Youth record, saw a fat cat walking on the fence, and sent off a text message to Melbourne. Throughout the day my mum called me 'Bjarne', 'Richard' and 'Jack'. Dementia is a laugh. And not. We had mashed potatoes and fish for dinner. I also watched 'Sex & The City' (are you even allowed to when you're a gorehound?).

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Funny story. As you probably know I watch all kinds of weird horror movies from around the globe. One of my recent discoveries is the "Flying Head With Intestines Dangling Underneath" genre. For years I've been familiar with the very entertaining MYSTICS IN BALI but I always figured it was just a single film and not an entire genre but as it turns out there's a whole heap of films from Indonesia and (especially) Thailand about flying heads! Recently I've been able to find some of these films on VCD from Thailand (and on video from Sweden!!!) and a couple of days ago I found another one, KRASUE KUD PORB, at an eBay store in Thailand. Unfortunately someone else had already made a bid for it but I thought I'd just try and outbid him. After all, how many people are interested in these films. But then something most unexpected happened; the other "seller" kept bidding until we reached $60. Now, dear reader, think about this again; we're talking 60 dollars for a bloody un-subtitled video-cd with crappy picture quality. Even my bidding $60 was crazy so I decided to stop when the other one outbid me with $61. None of that is suspectful... but then this morning... I received an email from the seller saying the other bidder didn't have the money to pay for the VCD! So if I wanted the film I could have it for $60! Yeah right, you think I'm an idiot!! One of my film friends and I have both previously experienced to have lost auctions from this seller and just after the end of the auction he has emailed us and said that by chance he has just found an extra copy which we can buy for the same price as the winning bid. I got a feeling this seller now got greedy and wanted to see how far he could stretch the bow. I was so annoyed I began going thru all the VCD's at eThaiCD.com (often you can't do an ordinary search due to Thai titles being transcribed differently from Thai to Roman letters) and after about two short minutes I found it... at the price of... 6 dollars!! Including postage!!!It's pretty cool to get this rare VCD ten times cheaper but it's also sad that there are people who'll go to such great lengths in order to make a buck.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Ahh, life is beautiful! I'm on holiday on the continent - and soon, very very soon, I'll be getting THIS:

The STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL from 1978!!! It's weird; STAR WARS has been such an overwhelming success ever since the first film came out in 1977 but still almost nobody knows about this little seen TV holiday special that was made in 1978 to keep the interest in STAR WARS afloat. It stars the original actors from the real films; Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and maaaybe Mark Hamill (although some Internet sources say it's not actually the real Mark Hamill!!). It's supposed to be the worst pile of shite ever and George Lucas has (allegedly) stated he'd like to smash every copy of it with a hammer. One girl on IMDB wrote: "I lost an hour and a half of my life and really nothing happened during that time other than losing any shred of respect I may have had for George Lucas." This may very well turn out to be true... but by Jove I wanna watch this regardless.

Friday, May 16, 2008

I ordered FATAL TERMINATION (violent Hong Kong movie) and WARDOG (violent Swedish movie) in February from "Dragon & Tiger" in Austria and now, three months later, they're finally shipping them out to me! Both DVDs were 'in stock' and it still took them three months. I emailed them and they never bothered to answer me. Anyway, screw the wait and all, I'm getting them now, they're both uncut and supposed to be excellent versions so woo-hoo!!!You can check out D&T here.

Blah! I ate too much pizza tonight and I feel sick now! I guess I shouldn't have started off with that burger!

Anyway, I finally received my second batch of Betamax tapes from the UK! Yes, exiting!! They're in a terrible condition but that's not important. They're just cool to have (and they cost close to nothing).

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Last night I watched the only surviving episode of the original "Vampira" TV show from 1954!!! It was quite a treat finally getting to watch this show after having read about it for years and years, and after having watched Tim Burton's rendition of it in his (very good) film ED WOOD. The very first time I saw Vampira (the character) was around 1991 when I went to the cinema and watched PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE in Melbourne. And now, 15+ years later I finally get to watch her old 1950s TV-show. It was great, dark, cool, horrifying, and everything. In other words; as cool as "Vampira" in ED WOOD makes it out to be! I thought the DVD would only contain the show itself but actually it also contained the film Vampira showed on that dark and chilly night: THE MYSTERY OF THE 13TH GUEST (a Monogram horror movie from 1943). I watched the whole thing and the film was alright, not the best horror movie ever, but alright. But of course, it was nothing compared to the joy of finally being able to watch the "Vampira" show, even if the whole thing only lasted five minutes or so. An interesting feature is they kept the original TV ads in the movie and altho I usually hate TV ads I thought this was pretty cool. By the way, I found an online listing of all the films Vampira showed and guess what; She did actually show WHITE ZOMBIE as portrayed in ED WOOD! However, in ED WOOD we see WHITE ZOMBIE being shown on Halloween eve which is, eh, let's call it an stroke of artistic freedom on Tim Burton's part, haha. Actually it was shown in May. The Halloween film (shown the night before Halloween '54) was actually KING OF THE ZOMBIES! Ahhh, Vampira.

PS: Yep, I was sick of this blog being all black so now we're all red! (press F11 to remove the bar on top).

Friday, May 9, 2008

Woo-hoo! I finally received À l'INTÉRIEUR aka Inside in the mail today. It's taken a while, apparently it's shaken up such a stir that it's been sold out everywhere for a while but now it's here, here at Casa J!! I also got NEKROMANTIK 2 so the weekend is saved! Hah.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

My cd player is busted so I'm going thru my old cassette tapes (now it really IS like living in 1988 'round here; I bought Betamax video tapes last week and now I'm fucking listening to cassette tapes, haha). Anyway, one of the tapes I pulled out is a bootleg of the kings of garage-rock, THE NOMADS, playing live in Eindhoven, Holland, 1984. It's just so good and cool and... Nomads-ie! And all day I've been thinking: 'Why don't they put out something new!!!' They ought to. Nomads forever.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Mondays are a drag. Well, except for when you're unemployed then it doesn't really matter how terribe they are, you just spit them in the face and go back to bed.(and that headline is from a Primus song btw).

About Me

Latest post in Gibberish:

Comments from members of the Jack J cult:

Huh?

The blog title is my original 'Greek' language title for this blog. I tried with a couple of English titles but they read flabby so I decided to keep the original title even though most of you won't understand it. But, hey, it'll add an exotic spice to it! English translated titles could have been: Reflections of a Hitman, Diary of a Hitman, A Hitman Looks Back, or Memoirs of a Hitman.